Putting ourselves first

To look forward and set intentions, it’s important to know how we feel about where we’ve come from and about what we’ve done.

I look back and WHOA, that was just the one year?! Moved our beloved Yogala – huge renovation and rebrand. Took two small children to India for a month. Made a third baby (still baking). Moved house. Maintained my own yoga and meditation practice. Taught treasured students. Grew more grey hairs. Shed a few tears. Laughed. Wondered at the point of it all. Got lost in the joy of watching my children play with their dolls.

On reflection, I don’t seem to do things small. I like large. I like creeping along limbs of a tree with knees knocking and curiosity. Will I fall or fly?

The thing I’ve learned in pushing myself is that seeming limits can be pushed if I take care of myself. If I’m well, they don’t feel like limits but like possibilities. To be truly well however often requires putting ourselves first.

And a lot of the time I do put myself first. I get up at 4:30am to put myself first, quite literally, before anything or anyone has the chance to need me. To practice my yoga – my life’s anchor; to meditate; to drink a coffee in solitude. To think. To be. To refuel.

There’s a gift to be found in being seemingly ‘selfish’ by running a bath for myself before I run one for my children, or leaving my husband to contend with breakfast and the school run alone. The gift is a better, more ‘me’ me! And to be more alive in your own skin is a joy worth fighting for.

So I’m setting an intention for our studio and community for 2019 – for the courage to prioritise our own needs in order that we feel alive and just right in our own skin.

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One commitment to my ‘new’ is to back off teaching as I head into the last two months of pregnancy with my third baby. You’ll see some slight tweaks in the 2019 timetable with Susie taking over Progressive now on Tuesdays and Fridays, plus a couple of new classes phasing in as the year progresses. I’ll still be at the studio as much as usual, there to talk and assist you in practice (and in life!).